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Facets of anger : inter-relations and relations to driving behaviours

University of British Columbia

This thesis examines the relationship of anger expression with other facets of the anger construct and applies these to account for individual differences in risky driving behaviors. Anger expression as measured by the Behavioral Anger Response Questionnaire is compared to measures of hostile attitude, trait driving anger, Type-A personality, and anxiety to further evaluate the construct validity for this new measure of anger expression as it relates to anger level at large and to angry driving. Driving-related anger is then related to traffic violations and motor vehicle accidents given that anger is know to contribute to risky driving and that the resulting traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of disability and death in our society. A large sample (N = 316) of active drivers of varying ages (range = 17-67 years) filled out a questionnaire package containing measures of driving anger, hostile attitude, Type-A personality, anger expression as measured by the Behavioral Anger Response Questionnaire, demographics, and driving behaviours. Analyses were first conducted to test the nomological network of general and driving related anger variables and differentiate anger level from anger expression. Driving anger was found to be related to hostile attitude (r = .33, p<.001), anxiety (r = .29, p<.001), anger out (r = .33, p>001), and rumination (r = .24, p<.001). As for driving behaviours, more men reported receiving tickets for moving violations (X²(l) = 15.58, p<.001), and being involved in minor (X² (l) = 4.51, p<025), and major motor vehicle accidents (X² (l) = 5.95, p<.025) over the past five years, but not motor vehicle accidents overall (X² (l) = 3.56, p>.05). A greater number of participants under 30 years of age reported involvement in motor vehicle accidents as well (X² (l) = 11.77, p<.001). Next, driving anger related variables were used to test predictive models of who received tickets for moving violations and who has an accident history. After controlling for age, gender, and hours driven per week, none of the psychological variables or tested interactions of these variables with age or gender predicted the receipt of tickets for moving violations, or major motor vehicle accident involvement. The receipt of tickets for moving violations, however, along with an interaction between anger out, age and gender, predicted M V A involvement (X² (9) = 36.52, p<.001), for women under 30 years of age (odds = 1.47 for also increase in anger out).

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-10-30

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/14492

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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